1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cellular phone, and more specifically, to a method for identifying a detachable cover of a cellular phone and adjusting parameters of the cellular phone according to the identified cover.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A cellular phone cover is a crucial item in the design of a cellular phone. In addition to aesthetics, the design of the cover also affects durability, ability to withstand damage from electrostatic discharge (ESD), and even wireless performance of the cellular phone. As a result, all of the major producers of cellular phones put a great deal of effort into design of the cellular phone cover.
Furthermore, since consumers prefer to change the appearance of their cellular phones, it is now common to find cellular phones with swappable covers. For example, the Motorola® C330 series of cellular phones has three swappable covers with different shapes and textures that are used to cover the circuitry (such as the transceiver) of the cellular phone. With this setup, users can easily and freely change the cover of the cellular phone without concern for the internal hardware or software of the cellular phone.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a diagram of a cellular phone 10 according to the prior art. The cellular phone 10 contains an internal housing 20 and a cover 60. Formed on the internal housing 20 is a speaker 22, a display 24 such as an LCD display, a backlight Light Emitting Diode (LED) 26, a plurality of keypad sensors 28, and a microphone 32. Each of these items is well known in the art, and will be discussed only to the extent that they apply to the present invention. The cover 60 can be installed on the internal housing 20, and provides protective and aesthetic functions to the cellular phone 10. The cover 60 contains a set of speaker holes 62 for allowing the speaker 22 to be heard through the cover 60 and a display hole 64 for allowing the display 24 to be viewed through the cover 60. A plurality of keys 68 is used for pressing the keypad sensors 28, thereby providing input to the cellular phone 10. The cover 60 also contains a microphone hole 72 for allowing sound signals to travel through the cover 60 to the microphone 32.
Please refer to FIG. 2. FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram of the cellular phone 10 shown in FIG. 1. A transceiver 34 is used for controlling operation of the cellular phone 10. The transceiver 34 receives instructions from control software 42 stored in a memory 40, and controls hardware operations of the cellular phone 10. For example, the transceiver 34 processes input signals from the keypad sensors 28 and the microphone 32, and sends output signals to the speaker 22, display 24, and backlight LED 26.
The transceiver 34 must be fine-tuned for obtaining optimal performance of the cellular phone 10. Fine-tuning includes providing acoustic and wireless settings to the transceiver 34 to maximize performance. However, every time the cover 60 on the cellular phone 10 is changed, the previously set acoustic and wireless settings may not be suitable for the new cover 60. Therefore, the ability to swap the cover 60 of the cellular phone 10 complicates fine-tuning, and requires designers to find settings for the transceiver 34 that can be used with all of the different covers available. Unfortunately, with so many covers to consider, the acoustic and wireless settings are difficult to fine-tune. Furthermore, even if settings are chosen that can be used adequately with each of the covers, the chosen settings will still not give optimal performance for each of the different covers.